Dr Helena Dunbar
7 Jul 2025
On 3rd July 2025, the government released its Fit for the Future: 10-Year Health Plan for England. It sets out how the government will "reinvent the NHS through 3 radical shifts". Dr Helena Dunbar, CEO of Kentown Support, shares her response to the plan and how it impacts the work of Kentown Support.
There is no doubt the NHS is in crisis with long waiting lists, workforce shortages, demoralised staff, rising inequalities and demand massively outweighing supply. The new NHS 10-year plan is welcomed – if it truly addresses these issues.
For the most vulnerable families in our society this plan is overdue. Kentown Support is thrilled to see the shift of power back to people and local populations, focusing care on communities rather than hospitals. The idea of the neighbourhood health service resonates with our own ambitions to focus on delivering a model of integrated and collaborative community children’s palliative care services, so this is exciting for us. Working with partners like Together for Short Lives and Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, we will fund teams of competent professionals who work together across the statutory and voluntary sectors to provide for the holistic needs of children and their families at home.
We welcome single patient records and personalised patient-centred care plans if they stop parents having to repeat their story, and can be accessed by all professionals working together.
We welcome the commitment to help more people die at home if that is their choice, with rapid response teams and hospices working together. This will require investment into palliative care across all ages: particularly for babies, children and young people. It will also put further emphasis on the need for community services provided by organisations from across the voluntary sector, including Kentown Support.
We welcome a new operating model for the NHS with seven NHS regions and devolved local power and commissioning. But this will need appropriate resources, data, quality control, sound outcome measures, commitment of inclusivity and a commitment to listen to the voice of each child and their parents.
We look forward to the 10-year workforce plan and hope that the overhaul of education and training curricula includes an awareness and understanding of palliative care for babies, children and adults as core knowledge and foundational skills for all.
Kentown Support is there to support the most vulnerable families at home and we hope that this new 10 year plan truly delivers “radical change – major surgery, not sticking plasters”, as outlined by the Prime Minister.
Families of children with life limiting conditions need care at home, centred on their needs, which is flexible and adaptable, has no organisational boundaries, and is delivered by competent, equipped professionals. Through this, we can truly allow parents to be parents and families to be families.